In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan

If you aren’t sure why food needs defending, In Defense of Food is the book for you. Many books have appeared over the last few years that address the dangers of the Western food culture, and In Defense of Food, while not the best of this genre, is a good introduction to the idea of a more sustainable way of eating.

Pollan boils down his entire food philosophy to seven simple words that also serve as the book’s subtitle: Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much. Most of us want to be more careful and conscientious about the food we eat, but convenience and cost often hamper our best intentions. Pollan’s easy to remember and practical catch phrase makes it easier to balance those two interests.

Pollan’s first directive, “eat food,” seems simple enough, but, in practice, eating real, whole foods is increasingly difficult to do in today’s marketplace. The industrialization and mass fertilization of our produce has dramatically decreased the nutritional content of the fruits and vegetables available at the supermarkets. Much of what is consumed in America on a daily basis is the product of industrial farms or a laboratory, both of which sacrifice good taste and nutrition for low prices.

For most Americans, Pollan’s suggestion to consume mostly plants is almost un-American. We like our meat, and we don’t particularly care how it gets to our plates. Pollan cites decades-old research from Weston A. Price, as well as more recent research presented in Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell II’s The China Study to demonstrate the dangers of the animal-protein-rich American diet. Factory farms are one of the leading causes of air and water pollution, so, for those of us concerned about creation care, eating a diet consisting primarily of plants should be a way of life. At the very least, we should be making more conscientious food choices about where the animal products that we consume come from.

Pollan’s last recommendation, don’t eat too much, is a common-sense approach to any healthy diet. Pollan argues that we need to change how we eat by changing our food culture to one that focuses more on quality than quantity and more on enjoyment of the food and the experience than on cost. Pollan offers the French as a model of a right-minded food culture: the French “seldom snack, and eat most of their food at meals shared with other people…they eat small portions and don’t come back for seconds…and they spend considerably more time eating than we do.”

Our personal food choices are a huge part of our social experience - both as individuals and as a community. Our prevalent food culture today is shallow and exploitative, and it is time that we, as consumers, become more engaged in what exactly ends up on our dinner plates and how it got there. Reading In Defense of Food would be a good first-step toward that end.